Succession to Lenin: Trotsky v. Stalin

There were several factors that contributed to Stalin's victory over Trotsky in the power struggle that followed Lenin's death. Among the factors that were central, and would continue to be central as Stalin consolidated his power and moved toward collectivization of agriculture and mass industrialization of the USSR was the New Economic Policy (NEP). Although Kamenev and Zinoviev would eventually side with Trotsky against the NEP in the Left Opposition, they initially sided with Stalin and the right wing within the Politburo in supporting it. With the support of a clear majority of the Politburo favoring the NEP, including the formation of a troika with Kamenev and Zinoviev, marginalizing Trotsky on the basis of his opposition to the NEP became easy. Once Kamenev and Zinoviev changed sides against the NEP, Trotsky was already critically wounded.

While the NEP, competing ideologies of permanent revolution vs. socialism in one country, and Lenin's testament all had roles to play in the power struggle, I ultimately believe that Stalin won the battle because of his superior strategic positioning of allies to form an effective power base. Before I began reading for the final project in this course, I believed that Stalin was a simpleton who accomplished his goals through thuggery and brute force. Now, I have a more nuanced view of him, and I can see how methodical his actions were and how informed by long-range planning. Trotsky, in comparison, while clearly of singular intelligence, was often too rash, particularly in his public criticisms of other party leaders.

Two passages from my reading inform my updated view of Stalin and his ability to out-maneuver Trotsky. The first comes from the prominent revisionist J. Arch Getty:

And he was an attractive leader for many reasons. Unlike the other top leaders, Stalin was not an intellectual or theoretician. He spoke a simple and unpretentious language appealing to a party increasingly made up of workers and peasants. His style contrasted sharply with that of his Politburo comrades, whose complicated theories and pompous demeanor won them few friends among the plebeian rank and file. He also had an uncanny way of projecting what appeared to be moderate solutions to complicated problems. Unlike his colleagues, who seemed shrill in their warnings of fatal crises, Stalin frequently put himself forward as the calm man of the golden mean with moderate, compromise solutions.[1]

The second, shorter quote is from the totalitarian Robert Conquest, a harsh critic of Stalin and the USSR: "Trotsky was a polished zircon; Stalin was a rough diamond."[2] In terms of organizational talent, Trotsky was all style and no substance; Stalin, in contrast, was unpolished but highly effective. Like a Soviet version of Lyndon Johnson, Stalin seemed like a rube but was a master of backroom deals.

======

     [1] J. Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2010), 25.
     [2] Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (New York: Oxford UP, 2007), 414.